Golf car type vehicles have been around for at least 60 years. Originally, both gasoline engine powered and electric motor powered golf cars were available. Because of improvements in motor technology and battery technology, electric powered golf car type vehicles have prevailed. However, gasoline powered golf car type vehicles are available and are used in situations where higher speeds are required and/or higher loads are being carried or towed.
Hybrid automobiles have become very popular over the last decade. These automobiles have both a gasoline engine and an electric motor connected to a transmission and have a relatively large battery pack to power the electric motor. The hybrid vehicle has been successful primarily because of technology advancements in the transmission and technology advancements in batteries. Batteries based on a given weight have a far greater charge or ability to take a charge than the batteries of 20 or 30 years ago. It has been the computer controlled transmission that has really made the hybrid vehicle possible. At high speeds and/or high loads or at low battery charges, the transmission is driven primarily by the gasoline engine. At lower speeds when there is a sufficient charge, the electric motor handles most of the power requirements for the vehicle. When the vehicle comes to a stop, such as at a stop sign or a signal, if the gasoline engine is operating, after being stopped for a predetermined period of time, such as two or three seconds, the engine is turned off. When the driver commences to move the car, the transmission is powered by the electric motor, first. The engine is started when the car moves out and kicks in to take up the power requirements during acceleration. Use of sophisticated computer controlled transmissions has not made its way to the golf car type vehicles for a variety of reasons, including cost, weight and power losses that are experienced through any transmission. For a vehicle having an engine from 100 to 200 horsepower, the power losses through the transmission are de minimus. However, for a golf car type vehicle where the electric motor is normally in the 5 to 10 horsepower and a gasoline engine is from 7.5 to 15 horsepower range, the power losses in a transmission are prohibitive.
An electric motor powered golf car type vehicle normally is easy to place in reverse by activating a switch that reverses the polarity of the current being fed to the motor and reverses direction of the motor. When the golf car is powered by a gasoline engine, reversing directions of a golf car type vehicle becomes relatively complicated and requires at a minimum a clutching system to switch power from one pulley to the other pulley where one pulley powers an endless belt to move the vehicle in a forward direction and the other pulley powers the vehicle to go in a reverse direction. The clutching system activates one pulley or the other pulley depending upon what direction the vehicle wants to go. Because of the power limitations of the gasoline engine for a small golf car type vehicle, the weight of a transmission, the complexity of a transmission, and the cost of a transmission, transmissions having forward direction[s] and at least one reverse direction, have not been widely utilized in small golf car type vehicles. The reverse direction problem has been one of the most difficult problems facing the use of a gasoline powered engine in the golf car type vehicles.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a hybrid type golf car type vehicle which can be powered either with a gasoline engine or with an electric motor. It is a further object to provide a vehicle that can go in a forward direction or in a reverse direction.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a hybrid type golf car that operates on an electric motor when its battery has sufficient charge to operate the electric motor and which is operated with a gasoline engine which both operates the vehicle and charges the battery when the battery charge falls below a predetermined level.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a golf car that in the default mode operates with an electric motor either in the forward or reverse direction when the vehicle battery has sufficient charge, and operates with a gasoline engine in the forward direction and charges the vehicle battery when the vehicle battery charge falls below a predetermined level.